Schism

     Jess felt the sweat roll down her forehead. The band had been soaked through long before and the trickle continued into her eyes. One more piton and she could swing into the hammock and rest her arms and toes.

     "Hold still, Jess," Chelly whispered. Her voice was tight from the strain of the unstable position on the cliff.

     The climb had been started as a lark. The evening before, while watering the goats at the bottom of the ravine, Chelly had looked up at the peak. Regrets Mountain rose like a monolith above the plateau and the ravine cut deep into its roots adding additional majesty to its apparent height. From the river, the ascent was sheer rock face. The tall redhead whistled in appreciation. Jess followed her friend's eyes upward.

     "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Chelly asked with that wild gleam in her eye and the demon mocking in her stance.

     "First light?" Jess replied, mentally beginning a list of the items necessary to make such a climb.

     "Let's go now. I have rope." Chelly dug in her pack.

     "Goats need penned. We'll need a couple days' rations and water. Pitons, hammers, and hammocks. A lot more rope." Jess measured the distance to the top from this below ground level starting place. "We'll have to camp on the face and do the overhang in full light."

     "You are such a Stayer." Chelly pouted, but shoved the rope back into place.

     "And you have the brains of a biscuit." Jess whacked the rump of the lead goat to hurry the beast. "Tomorrow. You'll be glad we waited."

     "No, but you will be, so we will."

     Jess had spent the night packing, lightening the load, agonizing over supplies and weight restriction, repacking, while Chelly slept peacefully oblivious.

     So now, like spiders, they hung from the rock while darkness inched up the mountain's flanks. The ascent to the three-fourths point had taken the entire day. Rest stops had been at two small fissures, the girls straddling the V's to respite the muscles in their shoulders and arms. Chelly, with her longer reach, led. Jess retrieved the pitons, reserving them for later use, if the fresh ones ran out. A used piton was an uncertain ally in this battle with the mountain.

     The hammer struck true and Jess breathed a sigh of relief. Chelly grinned in the gathering dusk. "'Fraid I'd whack you?"

     "Again," Jess said. "A little." Her wrist still stung from the previous misplaced blow.

     "You moved."

     "No, you missed." Jess handed the hammock line to her companion, and checked the hold with a cautious tug. Chelly swung into her hammock with a whoosh.

     Jess eased into the other, testing the give before driving a pair of pitons to secure both harnesses during the night.

     The line of night reached the lower part of the platter of stone from which the girls hung. "Look down!" Chelly whispered.

     The river was a band of silver in the night, gleaming like a rippled ribbon of fine-spun goat-hair fabric. The plateau had become an eerie gray with shadows shifting as the first moon, little Pino, raced across the evening sky. Jess fought the urge to draw up her legs as the night reached their aerie and spilled into the hammocks as an unwelcome guest. The night wind gusted as each snuggled into a blanket and listened to the sounds and whistles of the rushing breezes through the outcroppings and crevices.

     "It sounds like crying," Chelly said. Jess said nothing. Sometimes Chelly just talked to fill the moment. "Jess?"

     "Hmm?" Jess turned on to her side to massage her legs.

     "Are you asleep?"

     "No, though I could be if I were alone." Her arms ached, her feet hurt, and her calves felt as stiff as an Eternity tree. The chill hadn't helped.

     The Brennan girl laughed. "Bitch. 'Fess. You love this."

     Jess reconsidered. "Then again, if I were alone I definitely wouldn't be hanging ass to the wind on a mountain of regrets."

     Chelly laughed.

     Jess loved that laugh. In the absence of sight, only a mental picture formed. One she had seen a thousand times and saved for moments when the dark surrounded her. Chelly laughed with her entire being, not with just her lips, not just with sound. With Chelly, laughing was a physical thing. The laugh filled Jess from toes to heart. The other girl settled into quiet again.

     "Jess?"

     "Hmm?" Jess really was almost asleep, now.

     "Will my hammock hold both of us?"

     Jess thought about the question, as she did everything, seriously. "Probably not."

     "Oh." Chelly sighed, unhappily.

     "But mine will… Probably." Chelly's happy giggle warmed her as no blanket could. Jess had a bad moment when she heard the rope slipping.

     "That was my harness rope."

     The sling creaked with the additional weight, and Jess stiffened.

     "It'll hold. You tied it," Chelly said as she snuggled into Jess. "You worry too much."

     And you not enough, Jess thought as she waited to retie Chelly's harness rope when the swinging slowed.

     "You worry enough for the both of us." Jess hated when the red-haired witch read her mind so well. Well, Brennans were often fey. "We're not going to fall. You've thought of everything. If, after all your planning, we do - well - you can say 'I told you so' on our way down."

     Chelly laughed and, in rare impetuous impulse, Jess kissed her. Paco's brighter light gave a pale radiance to the Brennan's pale skin as her cold hand slipped under Jess's heavy braid. She raked her nails softly on the fine hairs and her friend shivered.

     "Make love to me, here," Chelly murmured in the Alpha female's ear. "Maybe we'll fall…"

     "I know, I know," Jess said, kissing everything within reach. "But what a way to take the last step." Chelly's laugh was almost as satisfying as the orgasm that followed a while later.

     "It sounds like crying," Chelly said, nestled with Jess's head on her breasts. Jess felt warmer. Together, though more dangerous, was better than alone.

     "No. It's the sound of the wind kissing the stone. The mountain sighs with pleasure under her lover's breath." Jess blushed and was glad the night hid her face. She knew Chelly liked such foolishness, but still felt ridiculous speaking the words aloud.

     Chelly listened awhile, and declared in a whisper, "You're right."

     "Go to sleep. Now. Don't roll out of the bed."

     Both girls giggled, and fell asleep.

     Treblica was the third enclave of the Coven. No one could be completely certain how many had followed. The traders, who visited periodically, would say one thing then another and, if pressed, would tell of enclaves beyond their route and part of another caravan's home range.

     Each visit of a caravan provided an excuse for days of merriment and sloth. Occasionally a trader would remain; occasionally a Treblican would find her feet itching to join the wanderers. A trade is a trade. Treblica manufactured goat-hair fabric for barter, and fostered womb-lings for loyalty. The leader of the caravan would chose which of her band would reproduce and collect the fruit of earlier similar decisions.

     Jess awoke. She eased herself from beneath Chel's head and sat up, stretching. A damp circle on her shirt made her laugh silently. Chelly never drooled on her own stuff, only Jess's. Far below, the plateau was still in the shadow of the mountain, but a telltale creeper of dust angled toward the ground level parts of the settlement. A caravan. Jess smiled. Coffee, maybe sugar. Salt, again. She knew what items she would have chosen. But Martan-e Perta - who was leader - would never hear it from Jess's lips. The two had never exchanged five words; each knew the day of challenge would come. It would be hard to kill a friend. Better to remain strangers.

     Jess shook the other girl's shoulder. Chelly murmured something unintelligible and snuggled around Jess's rump. "If we want to reach the top and still return to welcome the caravan, we'd better get started."

     Smiling, knowing the tall girl loved festivals, Jess rolled out of the hammock, letting it pitch wildly while she repelled to a nearby crevice to stretch more fully and empty her complaining bladder. A mist carried to her, and she looked back to see Chelly doing the same task from an impossible perch between the hammock and wall.

     "Oh, for the love of freedom, Chelly! The wind is blowing this way!" Jess yelled. Drooled on, peed on, dragged up mountains - what were the limits of friendship, anyway?

     Chelly grinned and did a back flip from the hammock, stopping Jess's heart mid-beat. The harness rope held, but Jess watched the piton for signs of give as she repelled back to the camp. She glared at her friend, unable to form any suitable words.

     Jess began chipping out the pitons and packing the hammocks and lines. Chelly helped silently, aware of Jess's anger and her nearness to despised tears.

     Finally, Chelly reached out and ran a finger along Jess's arm. "I'm sorry."

     Jess looked up, searching for the next anchor point. "One of these days, despite all my precautions, you're going to kill yourself."

     Chelly swallowed the flip answer that jumped first to mind, and was glad she did because Jess continued, "Then what will I do?"

     Thinking first, Chelly said, "Exactly what you do best. Plan your next move."

     The remainder of the climb lacked the giddy light-hearted feeling. When the toothy overhang loomed as the final obstacle, both were relieved. The trip had stopped being fun and had become a challenge in the moody quiet.

     Jess watched as Chelly reached out testing the shattered lip of stone. Another fingerlength to go. No good. They'd have to backtrack and try another angle.

     "Is that last piton a good hold?" Chelly asked from her tip-toed perch. Jess glanced down between her bloody knees. Even goat-cloth will tear eventually. The last piton held Chelly's harness and Jess had checked the fit as she passed. That anchor wasn't ever coming out - surprising, because Chelly had settled that one in.

     "Yeah."

     "Don't go Stayer on me, love," Chelly said and, before Jess could ask 'over what', went airborne, leaping toward the lip. A piece broke off in her hand and she scrambled to grab another. Silt, gravel, sand, and pebbles rained down in Jess's eyes. She wiped it away with her equally dirty arm before frantically searching for her friend. Chelly's upper body had disappeared from view, hitching mil by mil further onto firm ground.

     "Need some line slack," she called. Jess played a little out, muttering every curse word she'd ever heard for the stupidity of such a maneuver. The lead climber hauled the rest of her body onto the top. Chelly's face reappeared. She grinned.

     "Wanna come up, short stuff?" She pulled up the pack when Jess tossed her the rope.

     "Put a piton there," Jess ordered, pointing. "Next time…"

     "You mean I can't jump for it again?"

     "Next time we'll do it the right way," Jess went on, ignoring Chel's words. Damned, flaky Brennan anyway.

     Moments later the girls stood on the summit of the mountain that had stood over them for the entirety of their short lives. Gasping, Jess looked out over the vast plain toward the line of another range of flat mountains in the distance. The caked dirt and sweat crackled on her neck. Her knees and hands were torn and bloody. The pants had been new and were now ready to be scrapped. There were things to be done, water to be found, camp to be set-up. She waited. Inside a pressure built. Jess waited until the urge demanded action, and she screamed from the bottom of her soul.

     Chel startled and then laughed. When Jess stopped for a breath, they waited until the emotion again boiled over. This time both screamed the victory.